Page 54 of Fierce Monarch

I spread my legs until I had to hook one of them over his thigh. “Maybe not an exact repeat, but I could certainly use some attention.”

With a deadly smirk, Greyson cupped my pussy, easily sinking two fingers inside. On my other side, Dominic trailed his lips over my neck and shoulder and slid his fingers under the waistband of my skirt to play with my clit. The dual sensations made me shudder.

I leaned into Dominic, talking into his mouth as he bent to kiss me again. “Plus, I’m not sure we ever christened this office.”

The boys looked at each other with wicked grins, and then it was on. Grey slid to his knees under my desk, and Dominic took my lips, swallowing my screams.

By the time we left the room, it was past dinnertime, and we were all starved.

The journal was in my bag, taunting me again as I poured a glass of wine and waited for Aislynn to come over, but I ignored it. Tonight wasn’t about history and the future; it was about my friend. With things getting heated in the city, Cameron had been out more, following Joaquin and the other uncles to make sure they weren’t trying to plan something that would get us all buried. Normally, it would’ve been fine, but I didn’t like leaving Ash alone when Cash had already singled her out as a target.

Better to have her under my roof where I could protect her myself. When the knock came, I was ready to put everything aside and just exist with my friend, but it wasn’t Ash. “Moore?”

“Got a package for you.” He handed me the massive manila envelope with a grimace. I took it gingerly, knowing it had been checked at least three times between the bottom floor and here, but I didn’t trust it. Cash seemed like the type to send bombs in the mail or peel the skin off an ally and have it tacked up like some kind of abstract painting. Considering everything going on, I very much didn’t want the psycho’s gift until Moore said, “My guy came through.”

Not Cash, then. I looked down again and realized this was it. Nate’s file. His real file. Everything there was to know about Nathaniel Beckstrom was inside this plain envelope.

And I thought the journal was a struggle to open.

“How much did he charge us?” I asked, tucking the envelope under my arm like I could hide its existence.

“A boatload,” Moore said with an irritated eye roll. He didn’t like people taking advantage of me, but I had a boatload of money. Generational wealth meant cash was never something I had to worry about, and I was grateful for it.

I waved off Moore’s frustration, directing him to Greyson for payment if it hadn’t already been taken care of. The ding of the elevator brought our attention snapping around to find Aislynn leaning against the back wall, smiling at her phone. For a moment, she seemed peaceful and free, a little naughty too. Like she was sexting her husband before she went home to rock his world.

The reminder that her husband was my cousin made me wince, but friendship won over family in this case, so I’d soldier on if she wanted to tell me all about what she was saying to Cameron.

Gross.

Then she looked up, and that happiness vanished. Well, shit. “What happened?”

“Got the intel back.” I lifted my shoulder like it didn’t matter, and her brows furrowed. Her eyes rocked between Moore and me until they firmed up, her shoulders straightening, and she made up her mind about something.

“Mine too. You get a pen, and I’ll get the wine.” She stomped past us and into the suite. Even though I already had an almost-empty bottle on the table, I decided to accept the offering. The last thing I wanted was to read the truth fully sober.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Moore said quietly as I went to shut the door.

“I’m good, thanks.”

After a quick stop to grab notepads and a handful of pens, I plopped onto the couch. Every part of me screamed to do this alone, but the part of me that remembered waking up with Dominic’s head on my chest and Greyson curled around my back didn’t want seclusion anymore. She wanted company. Friendship. Commiseration.

She wanted Aislynn.

So I sat down and drained my glass, holding it up for a refill before I’d even swallowed. “Keep ’em coming.”

“Hear, hear,” she muttered, topping both of us off. “Ready?”

“Fuck no.”

“Yeah. Me either.” Her look was one of pure love and devotion to our friendship, and I had to snatch up the pages to avoid telling her I loved her. If I started weeping, I’d never stop, and we had shit to do. We shuffled closer together and began. Ash had the files from her sources pulled up on her phone, and I had Gilded’s employment records pulled up on mine. Together, we cross-checked each bit of information we found, writing notes on the notepads—sometimes directly on the sheets, too—with any discrepancies we found. Each page ended up on the coffee table so we could sort through it to double-check something as it came later.

When we were done, we had a much better view of who I’d let into our lives, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

Nathaniel Beckstrom, twenty-eight-year-old Seattle native. Younger brother of Cassius Beckstrom, mother unknown. Only child of Marjorie Black and Alec “Ace” Beckstrom. According to the files, Nate had told the truth about Marjorie being in an assisted living facility and having early-onset Alzheimer’s. According to everyone, she’d been there for a while and wasn’t going to leave. There was almost no mention of the father beyond his name, though I understood why Cash called his group the Aces now.

Between the ages of five and eighteen, when he’d left for basic training, Nate had ended up in the ER at least four times a year, yet CPS never removed him from his home. Probably because the danger didn’t live there. The fact that he’d even been allowed to join the military at all was a surprise, considering how many almost arrests he had. Almost, because, though he’d been brought in dozens of times for questioning about this or that, he’d never been formally charged. I had to think that his technically clean record had everything to do with his brother, though I didn’t understand why he’d left for the military when he was sitting pretty in the Aces.

I needed out of Seattle, and the military was the only way. I was just happy to be free.

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